Roy Blunt Reservoir Land in Sullivan County, MO

A few miles from Milan, a 2,300-plus-acre reservoir has been decades in the making and is now under active construction -- eventually a drinking-water, flood-control, and recreation lake serving a 10-county region. It will likely reshape land values nearby once it fills. As of this review, though, it's still a construction site, not a lake, and land marketed as 'near the future lake' is being marketed ahead of the lake actually existing.

This page covers what's specific to Sullivan County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

What's actually being built, and where things stand

The project has gone by several names over its long development history -- East Locust Creek Reservoir during most of its planning and environmental-review years, now the Roy Blunt Reservoir -- and it is sponsored locally by the North Central Missouri Regional Water Commission (NCMRWC), a joint municipal utility commission whose member water systems include the cities of Milan, Green City, and Green Castle along with Sullivan County Public Water Supply District #1. The federal partner is the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which has funded both land acquisition and construction under its watershed-protection authority. When complete, the project is designed around a 79-foot earthen dam impounding a permanent pool of roughly 2,300 to 2,328 acres, intended to supply about 7 million gallons of drinking water per day to more than 100,000 people across a 10-county region in north-central Missouri, while also providing flood-damage reduction and a new recreation lake.

Land acquisition for the reservoir footprint and related purposes proceeded in phases from roughly 2009 through 2017 -- NRCS-funded purchases covering thousands of acres across more than 100 parcels, plus a separate NCMRWC-funded acquisition of land needed specifically for the dam, spillway, and downstream mitigation. As of this review (September 2026), construction was actively underway: Missouri DNR had issued a construction permit for the dam and spillway, the NCMRWC and NRCS had signed a contract directing roughly $62.9 million in NRCS funds toward completing the dam and spillway, bridges serving the project area were reported substantially complete in December 2025, and lakebed-clearing work was ongoing. Total project funding across all phases has been reported at roughly $110 to $143 million depending on the reporting date and scope counted. None of this means the lake exists yet -- construction of a project this size is expected to take several more years before the reservoir fills to its permanent pool level.

What to check before buying land near the project

If a parcel is being marketed with reference to the reservoir -- as 'lakefront,' 'near the future lake,' or similar -- start by confirming exactly where the parcel sits relative to the reservoir's planned permanent-pool boundary and the surrounding conservation buffer, not just relative to the general project area, since construction-phase maps and eventual shoreline boundaries are not the same thing. The North Central Missouri Regional Water Commission and the project's own site (elcr.info) are the right first points of contact for current project maps and a realistic completion timeline; a real estate listing's characterization of the project's timeline should be independently verified rather than taken at face value, given how much a project like this can shift over a multi-year construction period.

Second, ask specifically about the conservation-easement buffer -- roughly 1,668 acres around the lake is planned to be held by the Heritage Land Trust Foundation -- since a parcel bordering that buffer, even if not itself encumbered, may have limited or no ability to develop right up to a shared boundary, and any future dock or shoreline access will run through the project's own permitting framework (with boat-license counts and dock placement both planned to be limited) rather than being an automatic right of adjacent ownership. Finally, remember that this is public infrastructure funded substantially by federal and regional-utility dollars: land immediately surrounding the project may see construction traffic, dust, and noise for years before it sees a finished lake, which is worth weighing against any long-term recreational-land thesis for a specific parcel.

Recreational Land Near the Roy Blunt Reservoir in Sullivan County, Missouri

What's actually being built, and where things stand

What to check before buying land near the project

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